Our local Congressman is in town today for a "town hall."
Meet Patrick McHenry: Votesmart
Being a Republican in a very Red county, I expect a lot of cringing on my part as I hear soft ball questions and their canned replies that will quench my neighbors political thirst, especially considering how Conservative our Congressman is.
I expect "you didn't build that" to keep being taken out of context, while we sit in an auditorium that was funded with government money (the SALT Block in Hickory, NC), on government funded roads, getting there in government regulated automotive devices, protected by a government police force and all running smoothly with a functioning government traffic system... The irony, it burns!
I expect a lot of anti-Obama sentiment in general. It IS, after all, election year and you have to keep the base frothing at the mouth in anger over the "foreign" guy to keep getting elected. I may need a stiff drink or five by the time this "town hall" is finished!
I doubt I was even supposed to know about this event. I took a Republican ballot in the primary because a) There were no real contests on the Democratic ballot compared to the Republican ones, and b) I'd rather vote for the least-awful candidates on the Republican side in this very-Red county than worry about generally decent candidates on the Democratic side that probably aren't winning elections anyway. Plus I got to vote for anyone but McHenry. I'm betting that I got my mailers from McHenry thanks to this vote.
So what do you think I should ask McHenry tonight? I don't want to be too confrontational, because I doubt its going to have any effect on this guy or his perpetual fan club (have R next to your name in this county -> free votes for you!) I DO want to ask something that will get the people in attendance to think, maybe open their minds to alternatives instead of blindly following the Republican way. Something that hits home and demonstrates that we can do better.
I was thinking of asking McHenry about the manufacturing jobs that I would like to see return from China, specifically in hosiery and furniture production (we used to be an area that specialized in that kind of manufacturing) but I think that would come off as a soft ball way to just attack Obama and harp on lower taxes, aka more BS. Then I saw this: http://thomas.loc.gov/...
H.AMDT.92 (A082)
AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
An amendment numbered 50 printed in the Congressional Record to prohibit funds to be used for the Department of Defense sponsorship of NASCAR race cars.
This seems like a no-brainer, right? Why are we, in a slow economy where government officials are doing everything in their power to cut spending, wasting money buying decals on stock cars? I have nothing against NASCAR, but I think the corporations are pouring plenty of money into those events and do not need government help. This amendment would have stopped funds from going towards this sponsorship. McHenry voted
NO.
This seems like such a minor thing (and it is, in the grand scheme of things) but it is something that people here can easily relate to, AND it shows hypocrisy on McHenry's part when it comes to his stance on government spending. He'll gladly vote 33 (34?) times to repeal the ACA in the name of "saving money" but is suddenly hands-off when it comes to NASCAR? Are cars going left hundreds of times more worthy of government money than the millions of people that will be helped thanks to the various provisions of the ACA?